1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an information processing device having an operator unit.
2. Related Art
Many of the devices having on-board displays tend to be equipped with a rotary operator unit such as a jog dial (registered trademark). A rotary operator unit is constituted of a rotor which rotates about an axis, and a sensor which detects and converts a rotation angle and a rotation amount of the rotor into signals. A device to be operated by the rotary operator unit changes data displayed as a reference so as to be slidable depending on a rotation amount. An operator who operates such a device turns the rotary operator unit quickly at first, to gain a wide span, and then turns the unit slowly when desired data becomes proximate. In this manner of operation, the operator can efficiently find out the data to be presented on a display from a large amount of data including a combination of different types of data.
JP-B-2571793 and JP-A-6-102997 are publications each of which, discloses a mechanism for improving operationality of an operator unit. An input device disclosed in the former publication employs a touch sensor. The touch sensor is triggered to vibrate when a selector icon on a display overlaps a selectable unit. The latter publication discloses a mouse which employs a cover drive mechanism for driving up and down a mouse cover. The height of this mouse cover is controlled depending on the type of a unit which is overlapped by a selector icon on a display.
Recent developments have been made on a display device using a memorable display medium, which is called an electronic paper. A memorable display medium can maintain a state of display without application of a voltage, and accordingly attains an effective feature of performing display with low power consumption. Examples of such a memorable display medium are cholesteric liquid crystal or electrophoretic display.
Memorable media commonly have a defective feature in that a longer time is required to complete a refresh operation as compared with non-memory type display media. One approach to resolving this defect is considered to reside in the employment of a non-memory type display medium such as TN (Twisted Nematic) liquid crystal provided in an electronic paper. An alternative approach is to allow a memorable display medium to run even in a drive mode for fast rewrite with low display quality, in addition to a normal drive mode for slow rewrite with high display quality. In any case, it is difficult for techniques described in both of the above publications to provide adequate operationality for display devices or drive modes between which a rewrite time differs.